Chapter 943 Who is the Patriarch (2)
Linghu Shi may have been influenced by Emperor Taizu's eccentric aesthetic taste.
Perhaps, the Linghu clan is an extremely conceited and arrogant group.
The ancestral land of the Linghu clan is called Qingsang Yunlu. It is vast and is a perfectly shaped circular landmass, quietly suspended in the boundless void. Looking down from the sky, the landmass with a diameter of exactly 36 million miles is not large. At least compared to the astonishingly large stars, ancient lands, star cities, and cloud villages in the Supreme Primordial Heaven, the ancestral land of the Linghu clan can be called "exquisite".
But this land mass has been managed like a miniature bonsai.
Every mountain, river, plain, hill, and all the natural landscapes were forcibly created by the Linghu clan's great masters according to their personal aesthetics, using their great magical powers to change the world. The Linghu clan has an innate "obsessive-compulsive disorder" factor in their blood. They force themselves to make their ancestral land beautiful and cannot tolerate any flaws.
Therefore, the huge land mass has been melted into a round piece. The entire land is a single structure with flawless texture. In the secular world, any piece of the land mass that is knocked off will be made of top-grade jade.
On ordinary days, Qingsangyunlu is evergreen, with flowers blooming all year round and fruit trees of all colors all over the mountain. Under the urging of magic, these fruit trees bloom and bear fruit at the same time, which is magnificent and magical.
During these days, heavy snow was falling all day and all night in the vast Qingsangyun Land. All the flowers, plants and trees were covered with thick snow. The sky and the earth were all white, as if the whole world was in mourning for Linghu Ku.
Singing and dancing were forbidden, and banquets were banned. Whether it was the Linghu clan or the servants, they all had stern faces and were gloomy these days, without any sense of relaxation or joy. It was common to hear that in a large house, some unlucky children accidentally smiled a little, and were immediately slapped by their elders, who made them cry continuously, as if their father had died.
Linghu family suffered a loss!
The problem is, how did they suffer such a loss? Even the old foxes of the Linghu clan who had been hiding in the ancestral temple for many years did not understand. They had already mobilized all the connections of the Linghu clan to find out what was going on, but the information they got back was all useless nonsense.
In short, the Linghu family suffered a loss.
First, the head of the family died.
Secondly, the head of the family received an imperial edict from Emperor Taiyu and died while investigating the case of the ancient city of Loulan.
Thirdly, although Linghu Ku used some harsh and resolute means in the process, and even dared to kill a great celestial monarch of the former military mansion of the Heavenly Court... However, Emperor Taiyu promised that no matter how big the disaster was, Emperor Taiyu would bear it alone...
Emperor Taiyu did not stand up for Linghu Ku.
On the contrary, according to the news sent back from Taiyu Heaven, it was said that the Great Emperor Taichu went to Taiyu Heaven in person and had a happy gathering with the Great Emperor Taiyu...Afterwards, several of the oldest elders of the Linghu clan went to Taiyu Heaven in person, but they were unable to meet the Great Emperor Taiyu, and they did not even get a single word or sentence from the Great Emperor Taiyu.
The members of the Linghu clan may really have some fox blood, and there are many smart people in the clan.
Smart people like to think wildly and guess randomly. Therefore, they can't help but think that their former master killed a powerful great celestial monarch of the Five Military Mansions of the Heavenly Court, which undoubtedly offended the Heavenly Court.
However, with the support of the master, Emperor Taiyu, the army of Heaven could not possibly reach Qingsang Yunlu. Therefore, there was no need to worry about the revenge of Heaven.
However, everyone knew the domineering style of the Supreme Heavenly Court. The death of a powerful Heavenly Lord would definitely lead to a gradual settlement in the future. The Great Heavenly Lord had been in power in the former military mansion for many years. How many relatives, clansmen, and old friends did he have? Even if the Great Emperor Taichu did not speak, they would have attacked the Linghu family.
But as long as the Heaven Court didn't attack with all its might, purely in terms of family power... Who would the Linghu family be afraid of? It's nothing more than that the family members walking outside have to be careful of all kinds of plots and conspiracies behind the scenes... Maybe a group of family members would be killed or injured, but it's just the survival of the fittest, so who would they be afraid of?
Therefore, the pressure from the Heavenly Palace can be put aside for the time being.
The most important thing right now is to find out the cause and effect of the Loulan Ancient City case... and to understand why Emperor Taiyu refused to meet with the elders of the Linghu clan!
Could it be that some of Linghu Ku's actions disobeyed Emperor Taiyu?
If so, then the Linghu family will be in trouble!
Of course, Linghu has worked diligently and devotedly for Emperor Taizuo for countless years, so there is still a master-servant relationship... Linghu may pay a heavy price, but the bloodline inheritance and family interests will not be fundamentally damaged.
So here comes the question!
Since the Linghu family is "destined to continue to be passed down", the Linghu family is "destined to continue to be glorious", and the Linghu family is "destined to continue to be powerful"... then, who will be the new head of the family?
Which one?
Which lineage?
Which room?
Which one?
For countless years, the position of the head of the family of Linghu Ku's clan, lineage, and branch has been passed down in their hands for as many as six generations. Their status in the clan is deeply rooted and almost unshakable!
But this time, Linghu Ku had indeed provoked the Heavenly Court, and seemed to have offended the Great Emperor Taiyu... Then, would Linghu Ku's family, lineage, and clan... have to pay the price for their mistakes? Patriarch, do you still have to choose from the clan members of their family?
In Qingsang Yunlu, Linghu Yuncheng, in the main hall of the Linghu family's ancestral temple in the city, the great elders of the three sects of the Linghu family, the elders of the nineteen bloodlines, and the deacons of the one hundred and forty-eight rooms, a total of six hundred and sixty-six people, according to the habit that has been formed in these days, got ready early in the morning, tidied their clothes, brought the elite younger generations of the clan, and gathered in the main hall in a vigorous and high-spirited manner.
Let’s exchange pleasantries first.
Then use tea.
Greet each other again.
After a lot of cryptic and flowery speeches, a young steward who couldn't hold his temper got straight to the point - who would be the next head of the family? Who would take charge of the family? Who would control the Linghu family for many years to come and continue to ride the wind and waves in the Supreme Primordial Heaven!
So, everyone would first introduce their favorite candidates with a smile, praising them to the heavens and the earth, and citing their various advantages. In a shameless commercial boast, they would praise the person they recommended as a "perfect person", as if the entire Linghu family would fall apart and be completely finished if they left the person they recommended.
The deacons of other parties and the elders of each clan all spoke up and glared at the 'genius', 'elite' and 'talent' nominated by a certain clan, criticizing them as worse than shit.
We are all relatives. We see each other every day and we have lived for so many years. We all know each other’s temper and character, who has done shameless things, who has done unscrupulous things... We all know it all.
Isn't it easy to find fault?
From someone who wet the bed at the age of three, peeping at the maid of the aunt next door taking a bath at the age of seven, having sex with his personal maid at the age of twelve, renting a brothel at the age of thirteen, cheating at the casino at the age of fifteen... Then at the age of thirty thousand, he didn't learn his lesson and went to rob casual cultivators, at the age of one hundred thousand, he raped her and she didn't consent, and at the age of three hundred thousand, he was beaten by the patrolling divine guards...
Well, if a person only lives for thirty to fifty years, he can inevitably become a "perfect person" with "perfect character".
But if a person lives long... lives too long... experiences too many things... possesses too much power, authority, resources, and so on, and comes into contact with too many complicated people, who can guarantee that you won't make any mistakes in one hundred thousand years, two hundred thousand years... one million years, two million years?
As long as there is a mistake, it cannot be hidden.
It can't be hidden from anyone, it will be revealed today.
So, first there was some business boasting, then mutual criticism , then they started banging the table and glaring, and then they started greeting each other's ancestors... After a lot of cursing, the nine highest-ranking elders who had been watching from the sidelines started banging the table and cursing - it was all passed down from the same ancestor, whose ancestors do you want to "fuck"?
Therefore, they dared not to make a fuss about the other party's ancestors, so... the stewards and elders, considering their status, could only slam the table and curse, while the many elite juniors behind them began to "laugh and ha ha" and began to poke at their soft spots, kick their lower bodies, curse them, and use witchcraft...
Basically, every day in the ancestral temple, young people from different families would fight over a disagreement.
They often fought until their heads were broken and bloody, and the elders of each family suddenly realized and were surprised to find that the younger generation of ancestors dared to fight in the ancestral temple? Get out, run to the square in front of the main hall and kneel down... This is so disrespectful to the ancestors, kneel for an hour first!
The weakest one has the cultivation level of a Heavenly General. Kneeling for a mere hour, is this considered a punishment?
So, after kneeling for an hour, these elite young people ran back to the main hall one by one, lowered their heads and watched their elders continue to bang the table and curse.
You definitely won’t get any results from scolding during the day.
Then, at night, the elders returned to their own courtyards to gather their strength and plan various countermeasures, either to win over allies or to seek help from external forces.
The energetic young people, with their cronies, servants and thugs, ran around the streets.
When he saw someone he was not getting along with, he would invite him to a remote corner outside Linghu Yun City and have a fierce fight.
Naturally, there were no casualties among the Linghu clan members, but their cronies, retainers, guest officials, thugs, and the like, had been buried in the wilderness outside the city to be used as fertilizer in the past few days. There were at least tens of thousands of them!
In short, ever since the news of Linghu Ku's killing was passed back to the Linghu family, the Linghu family has been in chaos and confusion these days, with countless strange and bizarre things happening both big and small.
It was fine that they were fighting fiercely for the position of the head of the family. In the past few changes of the head of the family, the power was smoothly transferred and passed down within Linghu Ku's family. There were not so many problems. But this time, Linghu Ku seemed to have caused trouble for the Linghu family and wanted to continue the inheritance among his family members. How could it be possible?
For now, there are only some quarrels within the group, and they haven't really fallen out yet...but seeing the increasing number of casualties among the young tribesmen's friends, you know that it's only a matter of time before they fall out.
External pressure is already coming one after another.
As the most powerful clan under the command of Emperor Taizuo, the Linghu clan has been domineering for many years.
The Linghu clan is similar to the other forces, naturally, they have friends and enemies. As for friends, since Linghu clan's situation is special this time, they basically just stand by and watch. As for enemies, they naturally rush to take advantage of the chaos to attack... So much so that several families and sects near the border of Linghu clan, which are only of medium strength, have secretly started to attack and show their knives. For some mineral veins and habitable places with unclear property rights, frictions of all sizes have been constantly erupting.
Even within the Linghu clan, there were cases of servants seducing young ladies to escape, illegitimate sons plotting against their elder brothers at the instigation of slaves, and even miners in some mines who were supposed to work until death rioted and killed the Linghu clan members who were guarding the mines.
As for the Linghu family, which is busy fighting for the position of the head of the family, the nine great elders are restraining each other, a group of clan elders are fighting each other, and the deacons of each branch are rolling up their sleeves and leading the younger generations in fighting fiercely. How can they have the time to deal with these matters?
The Linghu clan, who seemed like a gigantic monster, was in a desperate situation like a snake without a head.
This was the first time in countless years that the Linghu clan had been in such a mess. Some members of the Linghu clan even realized that such chaos and embarrassment should not have happened... but it just happened!
Because of the internal and external troubles and the chaos, Linghu Lu used his own seal to forcibly seize Linghu Cang's command, and directly merged the border garrison fleet into the fleet brought by Lu Yi. He then marched straight in, passing through the nine internal defense lines of the Linghu family, and swept away more than 200,000 large and small warships along the way, and incorporated them all under his own command.
Among the nine lines of defense, there are some senior members of the fleet who are core members of a certain branch or family. Even if Linghu Lun and the five sisters have more power within the clan than them, they are unwilling to submit.
Meng Hu, Hou Qing and others brought by Lu Yi took action immediately and suppressed and captured all the members of the Linghu clan.
Therefore, when the mighty fleet was heading straight for Qingsang Yunlu and arrived at the void outside Linghu Yuncheng, not a single warning message was sent back to Linghu Yuncheng. The bigwigs of various families and clans who were accumulating saliva in the ancestral hall and preparing for today's chaotic struggle did not receive any news at all.
After a chaotic chatter of smashing cups and banging tables, several young men from the Linghu family, with bruised faces and noses, walked out of the ancestral hall with dark faces, and knelt down in the thick snow with two bangs.
They lowered their heads, facing the direction of the main entrance of the hall, mumbling to each other, greeting each other's ancestors, and inviting each other to go out of the city after dinner tonight and have a fierce fight with swords and horses.
A few restless young men from the Linghu family were bickering with each other when suddenly, the sky darkened.
They looked up in shock and saw that above Linghu Yuncheng, densely packed warships of all sizes had formed a thick dark cloud that covered the entire sky and blocked the sunlight above the entire city.
Six green jade seals were suspended in the air, and waves of faint Dao rhyme fluctuations with unique frequencies continued to spread from the seals. This meant that the person coming was a direct descendant of , and his authority in the clan was extremely high, far higher than those young men kneeling at the gate of the ancestral hall.
As a result, the defense formation that was about to be activated inside and outside Linghu Yuncheng fell silent, except that in some key locations, the extremely vigilant Linghu clan members set up escape lights and flew into the air.
Outside the city, several locations where the Linghu clan stationed their troops were in chaos.
A high-ranking member of the Linghu clan shouted loudly, ordering the private army fleet stationed outside the city to take off and be on alert... However, the high-ranking clan members who had been at odds with them and had been involved with them for the past few days, immediately issued completely opposite orders!
As a result, they were entangled and interfered with each other. Lu Yi's fleet had already blocked the area around Linghu Yuncheng, and not even a small sampan was flying outside the city.
So smooth?
Lu Yi was not going to be polite and immediately ordered Meng Hu, Hou Qing and others to land with a large group of elite Heavenly Court soldiers. Under the guidance of Linghu Luan, they quickly took control of several of the most important city defense hubs in Linghu Yuncheng.
Although Linghu Ku was dead, his clan still controlled all the important powers inside and outside Linghu Yuncheng, including the control of the key points of the city defense formation. Even though the clan was in chaos these days, this power was still not transferred.
With Linghu Ju, the maiden of our clan, lineage, and family, leading the way - although her big belly made several elders angry, the control of the city defense formation was still smoothly grasped by Meng Hu and others!
That way, it's safe.
With the Linghu family's background, this city defense formation has consumed countless years of hard work. Generation after generation of family heads have continuously spent manpower and material resources to continuously reinforce and upgrade it, and have been working hard all the way to this day.
This formation can never be broken unless a great emperor-level powerful person comes in person.
However, even if a great emperor-level being came in person, this formation would be able to hold out for half an hour if it was fully activated!
During this short half hour, the overloaded formation could even unleash the killing power of an emperor!
Does the Linghu clan have an emperor-level existence?
No!
Therefore, whoever controls this formation will control the life and death of all living beings inside and outside the city!
If this formation was still in the hands of the Linghu clan members...there would naturally be no need to worry about someone activating this formation and doing something unscrupulous.
But now this great formation is controlled by Meng Hu and others...
hehe!
Inside the ancestral temple, the quarreling members of the Linghu clan finally walked out of the hall, frowned, and looked towards the huge mixed fleet in the sky.
The standard warships of the Heavenly Court and the private warships of the Linghu family were mixed together, and the total number of the two was only 300,000. There were all powerful people at the level of Heavenly Monarchs and even Great Heavenly Monarchs present. They swept their eyes across the void and accurately counted the specific number of these warships.
A mere 300,000 warships are not something that these Linghu family leaders care about at all!
If the Linghu family put all their efforts into preparing for war, and risked all their family wealth, they could raise ten... or even a hundred three hundred thousand. It's just a matter of whether it is necessary or not.
A steward of the main house frowned and said coldly, "Well, are you guys going to tear each other apart? Which house are you from? You even sent out warships? What do you want to do? Are you going to kill your own family members? Haha!"
The crowd looked at each other, and none of them admitted that they had deployed the warships.
A light golden auspicious cloud slowly floated over. Lu Yi took the lead and stood on the cloud, followed closely by Linghu Jun and a group of people.
In the crowd, many elders of the Linghu family all changed their expressions, and their eyes suddenly focused on six bulging bellies!
